12.

These beasts, then, drink those waters, but passing; not staying, but passing; for all that teaching which in all this time is dispensed passeth....Unless perchance your love thinketh that in that city to which it is said, "Praise the Lord, O Jerusalem, praise thy God, O Sion; for He hath made strong the bars of thy gates;" ¹ when the bars are now strengthened and the city closed, whence, as we said some time since, ² no friend goeth out, no enemy entereth; ³ that there we shall have a book to read, or speech to be explained as it is now explained to you. Therefore is it now treated, that there it may be held fast: therefore is it now divided by syllables, that there it may be contemplated whole and entire. The Word of God will not be wanting there: but yet not by letters, not by sounds, not by books, ⁴ not by a reader, not by an expositor. How then? As, "In the beginning was the Word," etc. ⁵ For He did not so come to us as to depart from thence; because He was in this world, and the world was made by Him. Such a Word are we to contemplate. For "the God of gods shall appear in Zion." ⁶ But this when? After our pilgrimage, when the journey is done: if however after our journey is done we be not delivered to the Judge, that the Judge may send us to prison. But if when our journey is ended, as we hope, and wish, and endeavour, we shall have reached our Country, there shall we contemplate What we shall ever praise; nor shall That fail which is present to us, nor we, who enjoy: nor shall he be cloyed that eateth, nor shall that fail which he eateth. Great and wonderful shall be that contemplation....